'Cruelty Is the Point': Trump Takes Aim at Medicaid With Plan That Could Harm Millions

President Donald Trump speaks as Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Seema Verma listen during an event on kidney health at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on July 10, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to intensify its assault on Medicaid by granting certain states permission to convert federal funding for the program into block grants, a move critics slammed as a cruel and likely illegal attack on vulnerable people.

"In the same week President Trump said cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are on the table, we now learn that his administration is set to propose benefit-slashing block grants on Medicaid expansion." —Brad Woodhouse, Protect Our Care

Bruce Bartlett, an architect of former President Ronald Reagan's right-wing economic agenda who left the GOP in 2006, tweeted Thursday that "block grants are just a Republican trick to slash spending without appearing to do so."

"Money is fungible," Bartlett said. "Medicaid funding will be used to pay for other programs or even to finance tax cuts."

News of the plan, led by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, comes just days after President Donald Trump threatened to slash Medicare and Social Security funding "at some point" should he win reelection in November.

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According to Politico, the specifics of the Medicaid proposal—which the Trump administration is looking to implement without congressional approval—are "in flux, as officials work to identify an alternative to the term 'block grant,' which has negative connotations in the advocacy community."

Brad Woodhouse, executive director of advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement that the administration's latest attack on Medicaid shows "the president's war on healthcare knows no bounds."

"In the same week President Trump said cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are on the table," said Woodhouse, "we now learn that his administration is set to propose benefit-slashing block grants on Medicaid expansion, targeting the benefits of millions of Americans who have gained coverage through one of the Affordable Care Act's most important, successful, and popular provisions."

"They can't keep pace with the rising costs of healthcare (even the ones that 'adjust for inflation') and lead to would-be recipients going without care," said Nelson. "Forty-three percent of Medicaid enrollees are children. The Trump admin knows that. The cruelty is the point."

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Further

Prepping for Saturday's protests in D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser went for the grand gesture - and a symbolic middle finger to the racist cowering in the White House - and had "Black Lives Matter" painted in yuge yellow letters on the city's main drag. Bowser's action, aimed at recognizing the thousands in the streets "craving to be heard and to be seen," was criticized by some activists as "performative distraction," but many celebrated it as a vital tribute: "We are saying it loud. We are here."

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